A senior judge has sent an apology to the victim of a horrific knife attack after admitting that his mistake may have led to her injuries.

GP's receptionist Christine Bennett needed 22 stitches to a face wound after being slashed by 40-year-old Janet Kinney.

The attack took place at the Riverside Medical Centre at Midhurst in June.

A year earlier Judge Anthony Thorpe had dealt with Kinney at Chichester Crown Court for assaulting her partner with a butter knife.

But instead of jailing Kinney he decided to put her on probation with a condition she receives psychiatric help.

Judge Thorpe heard how Kinney went to the medical centre on June 16, holding a bottle of wine and started a disturbance .

Heather Norton, prosecuting, described how Kinney became abusive to other patients and then smashed a bottle and rushed up to Mrs Bennett, thrusting the broken end into her face.

Sentencing Kinney, Judge Thorpe said his decision not to send her to prison on the last occasion was a mistake.

He asked representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service to pass on his apologies to Mrs Bennett.

Jailing Kinney for four years after she admitted a charge of wounding, Judge Thorpe said: "The probation order I made is clearly a sentence I should not have passed.

"To that extent I apologise to Mrs Bennett because it was a risk with the public and it did not pay off.

"It was a risk I now regret taking."